Asia Cup 2016 in Bangladesh, 2018 in India: Anurag Thakur

The next year's Asia Cup T20 tournament will be held in Bangladesh in February with India hosting the 2018 edition of the marquee event, said BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur

New Delhi: The next year's Asia Cup T20 tournament will be held in Bangladesh in February with India hosting the 2018 edition of the marquee event, said BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur.

Anurag Thakur

The BCCI secretary was a part of the Asian Cricket Council meeting in Singapore, where he proposed about India hosting the 2018 Asia Cup (50-over format) and the members agreed. "Since India would host World T20 next year, the Asia Cup T20 will serve as an ideal preparatory tournament for Asian nations. With international cricket not possible in Pakistan and Sri Lanka will be in midst of monsoon, Bangladesh was the unanimous choice of the members," Thakur told PTI yesterday.

"The 2018 edition in India will be ODI format keeping 2019 World Cup in mind," he stated. Interestingly, major decisions were taken at the ACC meeting, an organisation that was about to shut shop on directives of ICC chairman N Srinivasan. At the meeting, the four Asian Test nations -- India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh -- also decided to contribute 2 per cent of their annual income to ACC for development of cricket in emerging nations.

The members also agreed upon having an emerging nations One Day tournament in alternate odd years. "The Asian Test nations like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh will send their A sides with three players mandatory from the senior side. The associate nations like Nepal, Afghanistan and Oman will play their first teams. Thisis an endeavour to make Asian bloc in cricket stronger.

The more they will play against Test nations, they will become far more competitive," the BCCI secretary said. In another major development, Dharamsala has been proposed as a 'Centre Of Excellence' unit for ACC. The Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) had given excellent feedback after they trained at HPCA ground after last year's earthquake that rocked the Himalayan nation. "The matter is up for proposal and will be discussed at BCCI AGM," Thakur said.